Weekly Roundup

In this week’s roundup, Gabriel Orozco arrives at the Tate, John Baldessari wants your name in lights, Stockholder, Orozco and Koons display a new object-ivity, Carrie Mae Weems wants us to help stop the violence, and more.

Gabriel Orozco will have a retrospective at Tate Modern (London) which will highlight the artist’s endless experimentation with found objects as well as photographs and other works. The show opens January 19 and will run through April 25.

John Baldessari is looking for people who want their name in lights for 15 glittering seconds. Your Name in Lightswill be presented by Kaldor Public Art Projects for the 2011 Sydney Festival as a way to engage audiences in an entirely new way. Drawing on imagery from Broadway theatre displays and Hollywood films, this ambitious new work will involve more than 100,000 participants.

Baldessari will also appear in conversation at a special free event as part of The Microscope series.

Carrie Mae Weems is talking about using art to make the public aware of a rise in gun violence around the Syracuse (NY) community, including two large electronic billboards are already on view. As part of Operation: Activate, Weems and a team of local artists seek to address the rise of poverty, unemployment, lack of education, hatred and violence. The collective is supported by Southwest Community Center and the Community Folk Art Center at Syracuse University.

Next month Jessica Stockholder: Grab grassy this moment your I’s in the Laumeier Sculpture Park (St. Louis) will feature Jessica Stockholder‘s use of household knickknacks to create colorful, playful sculptures. Also, TOKY Branding + Design is creating an artist’s book that pairs Stockholder’s work with the poems of local renowned poet Mary Jo Bang. The work will be on view from February 12 — May 29.

The National Galleries of Scotland will exhibit a collection of Jeff Koons’s works in Artist Rooms. The extended display will highlight the artist’s use of everyday items such as vacuum cleaners and basketballs and his later work with oversized kitsch objects to convey the power of consumer industries and explores the aesthetics and culture of taste. This exhibition will run from March 19 — July 3.

Be on the lookout for Laurie Simmons as “Siri” in Tiny Furniture, a film written and directed by her real-life daughter Lena Dunham who also stars as “Aura,” a girl who really wants you to know that she is having a very, very hard time. Dunham’s film puts a thoroughly modern twist on the recent graduate dilemma.